The field of this invention is geographic location referencing systems.
A geographic location system has an addressing scheme that allows a location to be uniquely addressed. Several systems are well known and currently in use, such as geodetic latitude and longitude, Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM), Military Grid Reference System (MGRS), World Geographic Reference System (GEOREF), Maidenhead, Trimble Grid, Trimble Atlas, and Thomas Brothers Detail. These known systems can generally be divided into two categories: global and local. The global systems, such as geodetic latitude and longitude, UTM, MGRS, GEOREF, Maidenhead, and Trimble Grid, use a scheme that subdivides the globe into areas of increasing resolution, until a particular location is properly identified. Thus each location address is referenced to the global system, allowing for the easy comparison of two location addresses. However, the addresses tend to be complicated, cumbersome, and unrelated to the real world, increasing the complexity of these systems.
The local systems, such as Thomas Brothers paper mapping systems, provide a technique that assigns location addresses based on association with a geographic region or physical map pages, with every location identified with only one region. This type of local system is easier to use for local location information in connection with a physical map, but is difficult to use with respect to a more global or electronic systems, as there is no simple way to convert a local address into a global address, and the local address is not recognized in the global systems.
Location technology has been significantly impacted by the wide availability of Global Positioning Systems (GPS), which are operated by the United States Department of Defense to provide worldwide navigation, position location, and precision timing services. GPS comprises a global network of satellites that interact with a controller coupled to a GPS receiver, allowing the controller to precisely determine its location. This location is typically output from the GPS receiver as latitude and longitude numbers, which are cumbersome for users to understand and use. A GPS receiver is sometimes coupled with additional capability that allows the raw latitude/longitude numbers to be converted into a more useful and usable format. See, e.g., Sprague et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,422,814; Inoue, U.S. Pat. No. 5,289,195; and Yamashita, U.S. Pat. No. 5,471,392. However, even with these enhancements, a problem with these systems is that they are still difficult to use by persons who are unskilled in the use of location referencing systems. Another problem is that these systems are unwieldy because they still retain their global character. Thus, what is needed is a referencing system that can be used with a minimum amount of reading, scrolling, and searching, and with a limited number of keystrokes for data entry. Also needed is a user-friendly, truly local addressing system that is easily convertible to a known global system for wide-range concerns.
The present invention relates to creating and using a location referencing address method associated with an established geographic information system. The location referencing address method has an arbitrary local referencing system that retains a known relationship with a global referencing system.
In a first, separate aspect of the present invention, a universal location address is defined by subdividing a geographic location into several independent districts, each with a name and a reference point. The reference point has a known locational address within a global referencing system. A coordinate system is placed on the district relative to the reference point, yielding a position indicator for locations within the district. Combining the district name and the position indicator defines the local location.
In a second, separate aspect of the invention, the foregoing aspect may be further enhanced by the creation of proprietary locational addresses. A proprietary address is a name, which will be unique within the district, that distinctly identifies a location with the district. A proprietary address is created by selecting a name, capturing positional information about the location associated with the name, checking that the name is unique in the district and storing the name with its associated locational information and feature data. Once stored, the name and the associated information may be selectively disseminated to users of locational systems.
In a third separate aspect of the invention, a locational system first accepts regional or positional information to determine a general location address, including a district name. The locational system then accepts specific addresses, each having less than a complete locational address. The locational system creates a complete locational address by combining the known general positional information with the abbreviated specific locational address to determine the precise and complete locational address, generally by prefixing the known general positional information to the specific locational address.
In a fourth separate aspect of the invention, a navigational system incorporating the foregoing aspects is defined.